


as the poets say

by pyotr



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Drabble Collection, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-01-27 16:33:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21395263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyotr/pseuds/pyotr
Summary: for terror rare pair week 2019day 4:they’ve always been comfortable with quiet, the two of them; neither were the sort to mince words, and there was no reason to fill space that didn’t need to be filled. but francis hates it now, hates the noise- the canvas tent catching the breeze, the low-hum of distant conversation, the crunch of shale as someone walks past outside- that rushes into the place where tom’s voice was meant to be.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Lady Silence | Silna, Captain Francis Crozier/Thomas Blanky, Esther Blanky/Thomas Blanky, Henry Collins/Harry D. S. Goodsir
Comments: 20
Kudos: 39
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2019





	1. day 1: a shared memory

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song of achilles: "he is half of my soul, as the poets say. he will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain."

they were neither of them what the other wanted. this was no secret- francis knew that if goodsir had been here that she would have taken him instead in a heartbeat, just as he would have given anything to see sophia one last time- but they were all they had, all that was left, and anyone else would have been unthinkable. 

she was a strange outcast even amongst her own people, small and silent; she skinned game and cleaned pelts and mended clothing, just as any other, but they all moved around her like a ghost. when he tried to ask why, wanted to know what she had done to warrant such treatment, he was ignored. eventually he stopped asking.

he’s still the only one that will speak to her, in the end.

he didn’t love her- she didn’t love him, either. he didn’t expect her to. but they were both so breathlessly lonely that they found themselves pulled together regardless, bonds hewn out of grief and the oily memory of fear and it was better, really, to not be loved than it was to be alone.

there was no spark, or anything of the sort. they shared a bed- because there was something agonizing about sheer human connection, a warm body to press close to- but there was no soft murmuring of sweet words. she would whisper and stroke his cheek when he woke, shaking, from the terror that haunted him in sleep, and he would hold her as she hid her face and cried when the grief became too much to bear. 

by the time their son is born the two of them have settled into something comfortable. they were not married- not in so many words, not in any fashion that would be recognizable in england- but near enough, and francis found himself at peace with it.

(in another time, another world, he’d been unable to see himself married to any woman but sophia -and if she didn’t want him, truly didn’t want him, well. he would have lived with that, knowing at least that he was constant in his affections.)

but he was fond of her, and he liked to think that she felt the same; he’d become accustomed to her, to her closeness and her familiarity. he watches her now, moving about the qammaq with the baby strapped, sleeping, to her back, the flickering light of the kudlik catching her eyes in flashes.

“silna,” he says suddenly, and she pauses her work to look over at him, “naqurmiik.” 

she was not a woman prone to smiling but she does then, a soft thing that curled, lopsided, at the corner of her mouth before disappearing. it made her look younger, somehow, sloughing off the burdens she carried; francis wished she’d smile more.

she moves to unstrap the baby and hands him over to francis, the boy fussing only a little as he passes from his mother’s arms to his father’s. he takes very much after silna, with his dark hair and round face, but that would more than likely serve in his favor as he got older, francis thinks wryly. he runs the back of his finger very gently over the baby’s plump cheek, smiling when he turns toward the contact.

(silna had wanted to name the child harry, after her dear goodsir, but hadn’t put up much resistance when francis disagreed. the netsilik, as he understood, named their offspring after recently deceased loved ones so as to keep the spirit close, but goodsir more than anyone deserved peace. though it had been far longer, they named him instead for silna’s father.)

silna drops a kunik to his cheek, her hand pressed flat between his shoulders, before she settles down to sit beside him. she leans in close, peering down at the baby just as he scrunches up his face; silna takes him back with a noise of amusement just as he begins to wail, and even though the noise grates, francis can’t help but feel warm affection.

there were many times over the past few years that he’d believed he was going to die, had even wished for it- and times before that, too, he supposed- and sometimes was disappointed by his own survival. he’d had nothing then save the disgrace that waited for him in england and the desperate drive to see his men home.

the pain was still there, the grief still gnawed at him, but he survived with it. he survived, and she survived with him, and he was content.


	2. day 2: tears wiped away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if any of this seems familiar its because it is
> 
> part of my [in hot water](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16975428/chapters/40228430) verse

healing was a long, slow process.

not that henry had ever expected things to come quickly; he had thought his broken mind like any other wound, mending over the course of a fortnight or a handful of weeks, at most. but instead his stay at rosebank stretched on for months, swinging between tentative peace and deep, dark despair. 

the goodsirs had been kind to him, harry and his sister and all their brothers. they’d let him stay here, at their home in anstruther- though soon the house was empty again save jane and harry and henry- and barely bat an eye at housing and feeding him. henry tried to make himself as little of a nuisance as possible: he split wood and washed dishes and did his own laundry and mending, running errands for miss jane and doing odd jobs about town when he could. she wouldn’t take the money that he made to try and pay her back for her kindness, so he hid it amongst the mail every once in a while in unnamed envelopes.

and harry, oh, harry, who had always been gentle with him, and understanding, even when the world was falling apart around them. that place had exacted a price on him, too, had taken something from him and twisted him into something else, but harry had kept the good parts of himself as other men buckled and crumbled under the weight of it all.

he had held him in the dark and listened to him cry, had wiped away his tears, and then he had given him a home.

it was of course a given, then, that henry loved him. anything else would have been unthinkable.

henry did not expect anything of harry. he had already given up so much of himself- he knew the deaths weighed on him, that he counted some as personal failures- that henry couldn’t possibly ask him for more. and he wouldn’t have wanted to, even if he could, because henry knew that he was not a thing to be wanted- that he was too strange, gone wrong in the head, too broken- and he’d not burden harry with his feelings.

but that didn’t mean that he didn’t still _feel _them.

there was something achingly exquisite about living in the goodsir household, and that was that he saw harry every day. It was a double edged sword; spending time with him calmed something in henry, fulfilled some sort of bone-deep longing, but it also reminded him at every turn of the things he could not do, and he found himself on multiple occasions reaching for harry only to drop his hand at the last moment.

it was good, though, to have something to himself, something small that he could hold close, because it had been so, _so _long since he’d felt warm- he’d been afraid that the ice had stayed in his bones just like the lead, a terrible reminder of years he’d give anything to forget. and henry was content like this, happy to be at peace, to be useful, to be near.

much of him recovers, in those months in anstruther, mind and body; not perfect, he’ll never be what he was before, but better. his joints still ache, sometimes, especially in the cold, and especially in his hands. he settles himself by the stove for most of the winter, and he apologizes to miss jane for lapsing in his chores, but she waves him off in a way that would have been brusque if not for her kind smile.

“don’t worry your head about it, now, mister henry,” she tells him, “we’ll get along just fine.”

so, he finds himself a blanket- the biggest he could get his hands on- and sits by the warmth of the stove and tries to learn how to knit.

the others occasionally came to keep him company. jane sat with him in the evening and sewed or instructed him on how to properly darn socks or scarves; polly came and curled herself in his lap, snug and purring so loudly he could _feel _it; harry would pull up a chair or sit cross-legged on the floor and read by the dim, flickering light until he was squinting. that was perhaps one of henry’s most favorite times, just the two of them sitting in quiet contentment, together.

it was under those circumstances that it happened, then, because of course.

harry had been on the floor pouring over some new paper sent by way of edinburgh, his reading glasses slipping down his nose, and henry had been bent over his knitting, desperately trying to salvage the mitten he’d been working on. and then suddenly harry had been very close, leaning up and braced with his hands pressed just above henry’s knees, their mouths pressed together in a dry, functional, and quite frankly _terrible _kiss.

but it freezes henry regardless, his entire body going very, very still, and when harry pulls away, he looks worried, almost panicked. He stumbles over his words, apologies, excuses, but henry doesn’t hear them, not really, he just –

“harry.” he must know, suddenly, needs desperately to know more than he’s ever needed anything else in his entire life. “did you mean it?”

he reaches out and this time he doesn’t shy away, his fingertips lightly skimming harry’s cheek, and harry sighs a little and leans into his palm, eyes dropping shut. he says, “of course.”

something in henry’s chest seems to burst, then, warm and bright and _wonderful, _and he smiles- it feels like a lifetime since he had last smiled. but harry had kissed him, and he had meant it, and in the end that was all that really mattered anymore.


	3. day 3: a decent (or indecent) proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i lost my original fill for this day, so i had to whip something up quick and it's not Great, sorry
> 
> historical notes:  
if you haven't read my other fics, thomas blanky married the widow esther wilson on january 2, 1834. he returned from the arctic with ross in october of 1833.
> 
> crozier was stationed on the _stag_ off the coast of portugal in 1831 and then to the _cove_ in the arctic in 1835; i don't know when his assignment on the _stag_ ended, or what he was doing between postings, but we can suspend disbelief for the duration of this fic.

he was sitting in the first row of pews.

esther was keenly aware of this the whole ceremony; all eyes in the little chapel were on them, but she felt his most of all, even with thomas smiling at her and squeezing her fingers as the officiant droned on about love and god and duty. she didn’t love thomas, not really, not yet- the loss of her james still stung too cleanly, still ached too deeply- but she could love him in time, and besides, she was a practical sort. a marriage only made sense, for a widow with a young daughter.

(and she liked thomas well enough, even if he’d looked at her keenly a month into their acquaintance and said, “marry me, esther.”

she had laughed at him, though it wasn’t funny and it wasn’t a joke. it was late november and he was still lean and rangy from his years in the north with ross, and he watched her with eyes so dark and intense that it had nearly scared her.

“yes,” she had said, “alright.”)

the time comes for them to say their vows and they do, and something warm and sweet curls beneath esther’s breast, but when they kiss- for the first time, it’s the first time- it just feels… off.

there was no one else sitting for thomas’s family, and he’d been plain with her as to why. _no one else left, _he’d told her blithely, but she’d seen the strain there, hidden underneath. thomas was many things, and mysterious may have been one of them; it was, at least, a façade that esther could always see past.

but thomas had been plain with her about many things: his family, his life, his heart.

and francis cared enough about her husband to come all this way and watch him be married, to stand as his family, and esther thinks, _that’s love. _

later, later, after the reception has ended and her mother has taken essie with a wink and a smile, after they have let the fire bank to smoldering embers, esther will watch thomas with the quilt tight around her shoulders as he smokes at the window. the snow outside falls slowly in fat, lazy flakes, and the world is silent. quietly, as if not to break the quiet, esther pads in bare feet across the cold floor and tucks herself against thomas’s side, his arm curling around her back.

“bring him home tomorrow, tom,” she says with no preamble, and she can feel the way everything about him stills at once.

and then he breathes out, smoke curling from his nose and the corners of his mouth. “pardon?”

“your francis,” she says, even though they both know who she means. “first thing tomorrow, you bring him home.”

he squeezes her then, just once, and presses a kiss to her cheek, says, “it’s your house, esther. you’ve no need to—”

“no, i don’t,” she interrupts, and he just huffs, nuzzling into her unbound hair. “i know that. but he’s yours, tom, and you’re his, so you bring him home, you hear me?”


	4. day 4: a touch of frozen fingers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone else did something saucy for this day but im weak
> 
> when i started writing this there was a prompt on the kinkmeme about croz & blanky's first meeting after the tuunbaq attack, but it's since been filled so i kinda moved away from it i think

it wasn’t that francis was avoiding him.

he was simply busy, was all; so much had happened during and after his convalescence that he sometimes felt as if he were drowning trying to keep up with it all, dragging himself to his feet every morning with the determination to see his men- or what was left of them- alive. he was still their captain after all, still the man that they looked to for leadership, even if he no longer had a ship to command from.

(tom had been there with him as he said his goodbyes to _terror, _a silent spectator as francis tries to commit to memory every inch of this ship that had been his own for nearly a decade. he had been silent as they walked her halls, and francis was almost thankful for it.

“she may well triumph,” tom had said almost softly by the ladder as francis took one last look around, and francis’s throat had felt too thick to give an answer.)

he could admit to himself that he was afraid of tom, just a bit, afraid to have lost his regard or gained his ire. he’d frustrated tom plenty of times in the past- angered him, even- but it had been on his order that tom’d gone up on deck and faced that monster, and so it was by his action that tom had lost his leg, could have lost his life. francis knew that hatred would be well-earned.

he knew that he deserved tom’s resentment but facing the reality of his lost friendship was too much for francis to bear.

so, francis _wasn’t _avoiding him. but he wasn’t seeking him out, either.

the first time they are alone together- _really _alone, not just the illusion of solitude, the canvas tent feeling as solid as walls in the dark- it is of course by tom’s action. he lingers when francis calls an end to another dismal meeting to count their dwindling supplies, not even budging from his seat when fitzjames and the lieutenants stand and shuffle back out into the cold. fitzjames catches francis’s eye just before he ducks outside; and francis shakes his head minutely, and the other man leaves.

tom is watching him very, very closely, though, and that in and of itself sparks a sense of trepidation. he’s sure he sounds exhausted when he says, “what do you want, tom?”

“a man’s not allowed to see his friend?” his voice is mild- mild for him, at least, just this edge of cutting. “you’ve had me chasing you around in circles, frank.”

“thomas,” francis says warningly.

“francis,” tom says in the same tone. “we’re going to sit here, you and me, and you’re going to tell me what’s gotten you all twisted up, now.”

_we’re dying, _he wants to say, _we’re dying, and we’re hopeless, and i can’t stand to hear you telling me you hate me._

“i didn’t think you’d want to see me,” is what francis says instead, stiffly.

tom looks surprised at that, genuinely surprised- a rare look on him, one francis has only seen a handful of times- before his expression settles into something different, strange, halfway between perplexity and challenge. he leans back in his chair, hands clasped over his stomach. “why’s that, then?”

he doesn’t know how to say it now, pinned under tom’s scrutiny; it seems a flimsy excuse, even if the fear that had gnawed at him had felt all too real. and he knows- tom has known him for twenty years, has seen the best and the worst in him, and he knows that there’s no need to put on airs, not now-

(_we are at the end of vanity,_ james had said to him, and francis had felt the words deeply. they were all just men, now, stripped down to bare bones, starving and sick and barely holding on to the shreds of what they used to be.)

but still he has to look away, his hand curling into a tight fist atop the table. he hears tom move- the rustle of clothing, the creaking of the wood bench- and a hand covers his own, rough calluses and chilled fingers. francis turns his hand to catch tom’s, pressed palm-to-palm, and squeezes.

tom squeezes back. he says, quiet, “francis.”

“i sent you up that night,” francis says on a sigh. he remembers it in stops and starts, sauced as he was: lady silence’s reticence and the frustration that came with it, anger and shouting, and then the cold, heavy fear that had settled in his gut. and the guilt, too- he’d carry the guilt with him always. “because we fought, i sent you outside and right into that… right to the creature.”

there’s a long silence as francis studies their hands, drags the pad of his thumb across tom’s cold-chapped knuckles.

they’ve always been comfortable with quiet, the two of them; neither were the sort to mince words, and there was no reason to fill space that didn’t need to be filled. but francis hates it now, hates the noise- the canvas tent catching the breeze, the low-hum of distant conversation, the crunch of shale as someone walks past outside- that rushes into the place where tom’s voice was meant to be.

finally, tom says, “not everything in the world’s about you, frank.”

francis looks up sharply at that, taken aback, and tom grins at him with an edge and squeezes his hand; francis, baffled, squeezes back. they are the both of them leaning forward now, elbows on the table, francis’s shoulders slumped and rounded and tom’s body angled to face him.

“aye, you ordered me out into the storm,” tom continues, and when francis meets his eyes he can’t quite make himself look away. the master’d always had that sort of magnetism about him, an intensity that francis didn’t quite understand but recognized regardless. “but i could’ve just as easily refused. no one would’ve stopped me- men don’t hold with a pissed captain, even your officers were unhappy, i saw it. i took myself out there; i wasn’t _sent._”

“your leg-“

“mauled by that monster,” tom interrupts. “the _tuunbaq. _nothing more to it.”

francis huffs at that, just this side of a scoff, but the relief that flooded him was almost heady. tom didn’t hate him- didn’t even _blame _him. he may have thought him a fool, perhaps weak in his vices, but he was here, still, and he didn’t hate him.

he says, “i’m sure i’ll get an earful from esther, regardless.”

“no doubt,” tom says, and he takes francis’s hand in both of his own, raises it to mouth to press a kiss to the back. “she’s always had more sense than me, you know.”

“i know, tom,” francis says, and he’s smiling as he does, something small and relieved and just a bit sad, “i know.”


End file.
